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Tuesday, 6 November 2018

Kill team: first impressions

Well, I've finally done it! I've played kill team, not once but twice! After all these weeks of pondering and planning and musing, I have finally been able to see what all the fuss is about.

After two games I can say that I really like kill team and can see it being my main game from now on. As I don't get down much theses days due to work and family, being able to play several games in a day is great, plus only needing to take a smallish box with everything I need, rather than a large case, box of terrain and a mat, really makes a difference. But enough about that, how did I get on? Well, won one and lost one.

Game 1: Deathwatch Vs Orks

The Orks were running a horde list, with a nob, a boy with rocket launcher and 11 or 12 boys with choppa and slugga's. The pox walker in the picture was a stand in boy as one had gone walkies somewhere. I had 5 deathwatch, a leader with xenophase sword and bolter, a shotgun, infirnus heavy bolter heavy specialist, combi-melta and power sword armed veteran specialist (modelled with two swords and combi on pack) and blackshield with sword and shield zealot. The mission was the one where you need to capture your opponent's models.

Now, I probably didn't play this very well as I spread out my guys and charged the blackshield in first turn. I was really just trying to test out the system and try and get into as many situations as possible. While this worked, it did leave me very exposed and I ended up loosing three to nothing when we finished the game at the end of turn 3.

Headless veteran tries and fails to take out some orks.

Rather annoyingly I forgot my mat, at least I remember the terrain. The Orks are swarming my lines.

The infirnus heavy bolter really proved to be a very potent weapon in this game, although it does have some drawbacks.

End game, at the end of turn 3 this was the situation. I had killed quite a few orks but was unable to capture any due to the proximity of other orks. Also we rolled to see if we broke, the Orks broke automatically I think but I rolled a double 6! So two broken teams and me down 3 to nothing, we called it quits to get another game in.

So what did I learn from this game? Marines still suck in combat. One on one the blackshield could probably hold its own, with a good number of attacks and with zealot, there at t5 if you charge. Shooting is good, especially the heavy bolter, although you really have to be within 8 inches of your target and have a second target within 2 of that, to make maximum use out of it. Also I must remember that deathwatch have special issue ammunition, as I only remember for the last round! I don't know if it would have made a difference or not but it might have.

This mission definitely favoured the Orks , as they were able to swamp forward in numbers and stop me from gaining prisoners. Also I really need to remember tokens, I've enough from the two sets I have, so I just need to take them with me.

Game 2: astra Militarum Vs deathguard

For this, the tables were reversed, with my opponent switching to deathguard and brining 6 models. A leader with fist and bolter, a (heavy?) Plague marine with blight launcher, a marine with melta (veteran?) Combat marine with bolter and two marines with bolters. I on the other hand brought the hordes, with a leader with bolt pistol and chain sword, comms specialist vox caster, sniper gunner with sniper rifle, heavy gunner with grenade launcher, plasma gunner and flamer, plus eleven guardsmen. We were playing the mission where you had to hold the opjectives to gain points at the end of each turn I can't remember which one it is off the top of my head.

Deployment and yet again, the guard hordes are squeezed in. You can see the objectives in this picture, one is on the central building and one is hidden up on top of the top right hand building.

I didn't take many pictures sitting this game as a was busy moving all the guardsmen around and getting in to the game. We played the scouting phase again in this game and while I went for moving a few guys forward, my opponent booby trapped the centre terrain price, which really put the dampeners on things. With this objective being worth 3 points I couldn't get to it with out risking getting one of my guys blown up by booby traps, while my opponent could just wonder around at will.

By this point were on turn three and the last turn of the game. By this point I had taken down all but two of the plague marines and claimed the two right hand objectives and while the lower left was being challenged, there was little chance of loosing it. I had abandoned the centre objective, but had made sure to keep a close eye on it, with my sniped, sitting on top of the crates at the bottom doing a grand job killing off the marine champion that tried to claim it turn 2.

The final fight, which ended up with just one guardsman dying and the objective held.

This was another fun game to play and while we again finished it in turn 3, with the guard claiming a lead of something like 10 to 4, with only 2 marines left to 12 or 13 guardsmen. In the next couple of rounds I could have gone on to claim up to 5 point a turn uncontested, so there was little point in continuing. The guard were good in this game, with the highlight being taking a plague marine down with a buffed plasma gunner overcharging his weapon, with a +1 from Comms and re-roll 1's from orders, shooting at a marine in the open. My opponent was quick to shut it down by charging the guardsman with his combat specialist.

I this there were fewer mistakes in this match, a few things were done out of sequence but nothing that would have changed the game. I really like guard, there orders are still just as powerful and despite there inability to hit and wound very often, they do have the numbers to make up for it. I can see why people spam plasma, they are really good, especially when buffed but I don't really see it as fluffy and so I'll not be spamming them. Sniper rifles are good, but just as in reliable as in 40k. I was lucky this game and got a mortal wound off but apart from that it didn't impress me much. Next game I will be giving a melta gunner a go and see how that does.

Again, this mission favoured one army over the other, namely the guard, as with the number of bodies they could claim many of the objectives easily and obsorb any losses the deathguard could inflict. I wonder what the results would have been like if the Orks had faced the guard or the deathwatch, the deathguard.

I am really liking kill team and hopefully I will get a few more games in soon but life is pretty busy at the moment and will be getting busier shortly.